


A Study in Desire

by venagrey



Series: Synesthesia [5]
Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Eiichi has it bad, Eiichi plays with Haruka's synesthesia, F/M, Heartbreaker of Shining Agency™, Porn with Feelings, Shibari, alternate version of my alternate version, happiness is boring, impressionist bullshit, it's always the quiet ones, kind of established, not fwb but not in a relationship, s&m themes without the s&m, wine dance & rock&roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:02:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venagrey/pseuds/venagrey
Summary: She had a way of looking at him that made him feel naked. She was as perceptive as he was—only, what she learned, she didn’t share. It had become a quiet obsession of his to pull back her layers and lay her as bare as she made him feel. But she was a chimera, and he couldn’t grasp her.Or, how Ootori Eiichi fell in love. Synesthesia-verse.
Relationships: Nanami Haruka/Ootori Eiichi
Series: Synesthesia [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829167
Comments: 7
Kudos: 7





	A Study in Desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MajiLovePrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajiLovePrincess/gifts).



> For MajiLovePrincess. Her prompt/request was an alternative timeline in Synesthesia-verse after An Education, where Haruka has had some time and goes back to Eiichi. No lessons.
> 
> ...I mostly complied. Heh. They aren’t lessons, per se, but this is a character study. Of Eiichi. I wanted to get into his head more than the framework of An Education would allow.
> 
> I’ve also been wanting to play around with a more adult (lmao) Haruka, so here’s what we have contextually: Haruka and her menagerie of idols were still roped into Shining’s Grand Reversal challenge, but Ren never came to her room in ch. 2, so the Ren arc of Synesthesia never happened. But the concert did, as did some other things. This story takes place two years after Synesthesia, six years after the canonical end of S4 of the anime.
> 
> LAST THING: While this fic is a standalone, it references a lot of happenings and developments in Synesthesia-verse, including the disbandment of STARISH, Haruka’s dance hobby, Eiichi’s love of wine and friendship with Reiji, etc. To get the most out of this story, I *personally* recommend at least having familiarity with An Education and ch. 7 of Synesthesia, and skim chs. 1 and 2 and the epilogue of City of Stars. But you do you, boo <3

× × × × ×

[ after ]

× × × × ×

_If the student had become the teacher, that would be simple._

_It was never simple. Not with her. Not when he didn’t understand his feelings, and not when she didn’t understand what she was doing._

_It was a holiday celebration for the Permafrost embassy, one that Shining had turned into a promotional event. Reiji’s bandmate, the nobleman, was releasing a solo album that was heavily classical, to the surprise of no one. Haruka had been on it._

_At present, the two were wrapped up in an elegant Venetian waltz in the center of the ballroom floor._

_Her dress was midnight blue, the gradient fading to cyan down her torso and darkening again into navy skirts. It swirled like water around her legs as the count spun her skillfully in the fast steps of the dance, the stones of her dress glittering under the room’s soft lights._

_“It’s been a long time since Camus has smiled like that,” Reiji commented, following his stare._

_He held a glass of what Eiichi knew to be either Irish whiskey or cognac, or some other variety of shoe polish, and sipped from it, the only disguise to a knowing grin. Eiichi glanced at him._

_“He has reason to,” Reiji goaded. “The record is a smash, he has our corner of the industry’s very own Bachelorette in his arms, and he hasn’t had to deal with me every day for months.”_

_Reiji’s grin grew into a smirk._

_QUARTET NIGHT was still ostensibly on Shining’s roster. They would probably remain there until the end of time, because reunion albums of legacy bands were good publicity. But Reiji had picked up his law license, and for some time, a substantial majority of his work had been as an agent to other artists._

_Those who were surprised by his choice hadn’t known him long enough. Eiichi had—and had also known him long enough to know that he was being baited. He narrowed his eyes at his friend, which earned a laugh._

_“Oh,_ Captain, _don’t look at me like that. Every warm-blooded male who has ever worked with her wants her, as do many of the women. We both know you aren’t immune.”_

_“Nor are you.”_

_“I never said I was. I should ask her for a dance.” Reiji winked. “How long will it be until Camus makes her his countess, I wonder? He’s the very last of us, perhaps he was biding his time.”_

_Before Reiji had finished speaking, Eiichi polished off the last of his wine, set the glass on a passing server’s tray, and strode onto the dance floor._

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

He was in the middle of turning a delicate sauce when there was a knock at his door. He unlocked the door with his phone and texted her.

Quietly, wordlessly, she entered, removed her shoes, and set her bag on the counter, making her way around the kitchen island to where he was working. He had left a glass of wine for her on the counter. When he looked at her, she was holding it, the rim of the glass resting just below her nose.

“Before you drink, try this.”

He pulled a strip of crusted bread from the loaf that was resting on the other side of the range, dipping it in the sauce before handing it to her. She took a small bite, then made a small sound of approval.

“Wow. I don’t know what it is, but it’s very good.”

He glanced at her, turning the sauce again. “It will be a burgundy, momentarily. Now, swirl for a couple of seconds and drink.”

She did. She held the wine on her tongue for a couple of seconds before swallowing, frowned, then sipped again. When she stared at the liquid like it had begun to speak, he supplied the answer she was searching for.

“The sauce is bitter. On the nose, not the palate. But your senses of smell and taste share many of the same receptors. If you have something bitter before a Bordeaux, it will seem sweeter.”

She drank again, smiling a bit against the rim.

“As usual, you’re right.”

Several long moments of silence fell amiably between them as he finished turning the sauce, cut the heat, and carried the pan to two waiting plates that he’d wrapped in tinfoil on the counter behind him. Pulling the foil back, he dressed the cuts of meat on each plate, then replaced the pan with its lid on the cooling burner.

“If you’ll get the bread,” he indicated. He saw her pivot and pick up the basket, then glance back at him to confirm that they were eating inside. He nodded. It was, unfortunately, too cold for dinner on his patio.

Especially with how she was dressed.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at her when she entered. She’d entered without fanfare, leaving her coat on the counter with the rest of her things, and had been standing next to him until moments before. The front of her long-sleeved number was demure enough: crushed velvet, merlot-red, the wide neck resting just below her clavicle. But her back was entirely bare. There was a strip across the top holding the sleeves together, and that was it. She wasn’t even wearing a bra. The deep cowl gathered just above the curve of her backside.

And the skirt ended well above her knee. It swayed gently as she walked, catching the light, _slissh_ ing off her black tights. He nearly growled.

She set the bread on the table and turned to him, taking another sip of wine. She raised a brow.

× × × × ×

[ before ]

× × × × ×

A few weeks after STARISH’s final concert, he’d seen her in Seoul at the kind of work event he knew she hated, the kind designed to put producers and directors in contact with one another outside of the strict confines of their agencies and genres of work. He’d rescued her from a largely one-sided conversation with a producer he knew to be twice her age and half as talented. Okada Sayoko had sent her, she’d told him. The director of Divine Agency. So the rumors had been true, he’d countered: she really had left Shining.

“Yes,” had been all she’d said. 

He could guess at some of the reasons why, given some of the rumors he’d heard at the manor house. Divine could offer her far more than any other agency could—and Divine, he knew, didn’t keep their artists, producers, or anyone else on the kind of leash his father did, or he’d have offered to hire her at double what she was making on the spot. His father was even worse than Shining.

No. Reiji had been right, all those years ago. She _was_ too good for them, for any of them. At least, too good to be bound.

But his curiosity was piqued when she offered no further explanation, either of her change in employment or why her new boss had sent her to Korea for what was effectively a scouting mission. An elite one, at that—high-level production staff. After all, the idols who made up the faces of the music industry were a tiny fraction of the talent required to keep the industry moving—something he knew, and had always known.

He’d talked with her for a few minutes, then left her to her own devices, letting her fulfill the obligations of her work and knock elbows with the admittedly high-caliber production and promotion talent in the room. But he’d kept an eye on her the whole time. She’d been nearly the last to leave, and he’d kept himself occupied in halfhearted conversations, quickly sorting through which were worth a follow-up. 

He was half-turned toward her as she accepted a business card from a Korean television director and bowed slightly, then turned to leave. When he saw her at the coat check, he gave her five minutes, then excused himself.

They were staying at the same hotel. By fortune, not design. Many of the other attendees were staying at the hotel where the conference had been held, she’d told him after he met her at the hotel bar, but she preferred the physical distance. He read the subtext: it allowed her a measure more control of who she ran into outside of work. On his own part, this was the hotel his agency always booked when its members were in Seoul.

She’d chosen a corner seat at the back of the bar, where she could see everyone and everything that came in, and he sat opposite her as he glanced at the wine list, then ordered one of the only decent selections on the menu. That it was more than ¥ 5,000 per glass earned a raised brow, but no more.

“I’ll have the bottle if you’ll help me drink it,” he’d said. 

To his surprise, she’d agreed.

They’d stayed at the bar until well after midnight, catching up and trading stories of bandmates and co-workers, things that had happened at the manor house while the other wasn’t around. What she had been up to since her concert. He’d learned that she had been seeing an ad executive named Hiroyama Akito before she’d been abducted from their date by helicopter, and that he hadn’t called since. 

That knowledge threw him for a moment. Hiroyama was at least ten years older than her—he’d worked at Raging for a while before he’d left to start his own agency around the time HEAVENS had become a seven-piece. So she liked older men—?

But she was lost in the story, laughing and reminiscing about Shining’s antics, how none of it had seemed strange until many years later, when she’d experienced enough of the industry to know better. She knew she was still a bit naïve, but she’d learned a lot in the past eleven years.

And yet, there was still an innocence about her. He hoped she _never_ lost it.

Time seemed to slow between them until she neared the end of her second glass, stretching as she noted the time on her phone.

“I should sleep, I have to work tomorrow,” she’d said, her face flushed a bit with the wine and her good mood. There were still two days left in the conference. She touched a hand to her lip, looking up at him. “Is it bad that I want to go home? So ungrateful of me.”

“Even you are allowed to get tired.” He stood when she did, moving aside to let her pass. “It was good to see you again.”

“You too,” she answered, her smile sweet. “Goodnight.”

His was, too. “Goodnight.”

He watched her until the elevator doors closed behind her, swirling the last of his wine.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

“Something wrong?”

Her tone was full of contrived innocence, as though she didn’t know _exactly_ what she was doing. There should have been nothing intimidating about such a small woman in stocking feet standing in his dining room drinking _his_ wine, but in six short months, it was as though she’d learned to read his daydreams. 

He drank her in for several moments, seeing _everything_. Her dress was the precise color of the legs of the wine as they slithered down the glass, tight to her body through her torso—and the way the light played on the fabric, he could see the outlines of her prominent hipbones, the many, _many_ hours of tango classes in the lean muscles of her legs and her flawless posture. Dance had made her confident in her body, though she was still far too modest about it. She held the wine glass like he would the neck of his guitar, her electric eyes unwavering as she watched him.

Coming to his house was an _utter_ pretense of surrender of power.

The thought sent a ripple of many indiscernible emotions through him, and one carried with it the passing thought that he should never have taught her his mind games. Not if he wanted to retain control when she came to him.

As soon as it had arisen, he batted the thought away. The entire _point_ of teaching her his mind games was that he’d known since he _met_ her that she would be a formidable opponent—would surpass him, even.

He crossed the kitchen in five strides, set their plates down, and kissed her.

With one hand, he tipped her face to his—with the other, he took her glass and set it on the table behind her, then found her hip and bent her up into him as her hand curled into the collar of his shirt. He felt the other skim down his abs before coming to a stop where he’d pressed her hip into him.

He nipped at her lip, soliciting entrance, and she gave it. He swept into her mouth. She tasted like the wine, but smelled like she always did. Citrus, vanilla.

Her tongue stroked his once before she pulled back.

“The food will get cold. You worked so hard.”

“Smartass.”

“I’m serious.”

He pulled back enough to read her expression. She _was_ serious. In response, he found her lips again, kissing her once, twice more as he ran a finger down her spine.

“This dress reminds me of your debut. I couldn’t resist.”

“Mmh?” 

Her voice was soft against his lips. He kissed her again for good measure.

“You had your back to me that night. I dreamed of writing songs on your skin for weeks.”

She smiled against him. “How distracting.”

“You have no idea.” One more kiss, then he pulled back. Her eyes were dark. His were, too, he could feel it. He looked her over, then stepped away.

× × × × ×

[ before ]

× × × × ×

He’d thought the end of the band would be easy. It wasn’t.

STARISH’s departure seemed to suck something essential out of the air. Without a true rival, the game became hollow and unsatisfying.

Various versions of that sentiment floated through the other members of HEAVENS, too. Yamato was distractable, constantly texting Okada Kanako from HONEY BIRD; Van had gotten a girl pregnant, and was chomping at the bit to end their contract so that he could do the honorable thing and marry her. Nagi kept picking fights with other bands, both within their agency and outside it. 

Surprisingly, though, it was his brother who took it the hardest. He lost his motivation entirely, and there had been more than one occasion that he or another of his bandmates had to physically escort Eiji to the studio to help him keep their commitments. Shion was the only other of them who remotely understood Eiji’s feelings, though he didn’t share them.

At first, he and Kira had kept them on track, until an urgent development in Kira’s family began pulling him away more and more. This left Eiichi with precious little time to manage any of his own affairs, focused as he was on managing everyone else’s so that they kept it together.

They lasted six months after STARISH before Eiichi announced to his father that it was time to end it.

He’d expected a fight. He really had. With competition from their only true rival in the charts tapering off, HEAVENS had enjoyed their most successful two quarters in years. But Raging Ootori hadn’t become the largest tycoon in the business by bulldozing his artists when they had nothing left to give. In the end, he hadn’t had to say anything. His father had seen it in his eyes.

No. Raging Ootori had become the largest tycoon in the business because of the caliber of his rosters. There were several talented groups incubating in the ranks below, more than one of whom was poised to become every bit as successful as HEAVENS and STARISH in a couple of years. And there would always be more, until the end of time. 

The most uncomfortable truth of the industry was that with few exceptions, idols were replaceable. They had _schools_ for them. Their precarious career expectations had been one of the first lessons he’d learned when he’d started on his own starlit path nearly two decades ago, before one of his future bandmates had even been _born._

His father had nodded, said he’d call him, and sent him home for the day.

That night, he lost himself in compositions, emptying himself into music until he had nothing left to give.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

“You know, I’m relieved you aren’t here to break my heart.”

She frowned. 

“You’re early,” he supplied, picking her wine glass up again and handing it to her. She accepted it. “The last time you were early, you broke up with me.”

“We weren’t dating.”

“Details.” He waved a hand, at once dismissing her remark and indicating that she should sit. “At least help me finish the wine.”

She smiled over the rim of her glass, then finished off what was left. He poured her another, then replenished his own, tipping it to her.

They tucked into their food in silence, though it was soon broken when she began questioning him about it. About what it was, how he’d made it, even how he’d arrived at this hobby. He answered everything, pleased with her inquisitiveness, and they remained at the table while she ate slowly, taking far longer than him as they worked on the last of the wine.

After a few moments of companiable silence, she spoke.

“I wanted to watch you work.”

It took him a moment to realize she was answering a question he hadn’t asked. 

“It’s why I’m early,” she continued. 

He looked at her in a way that indicated that she should keep going. When she didn’t, he prompted her.

“I gathered that. What did you want to know?”

She curled a finger against her lip, frowning around it as she chewed the final remaining bite of her food and swallowed. “I don’t exactly know. I didn’t think about it very long. I just thought: you know my processes, why shouldn’t I know yours?”

“You don’t?” He raised a brow. “Haruka, you were the subject of them for weeks.”

She blushed. _There_ was the old shyness. 

“Not just that,” she answered quietly. He sipped his wine, watched as she lowered her hand from her lip and picked up her own glass. A mirror. 

He let her off the hook. “Did you learn what you wanted to?”

She smiled. “No. I’ll have to come earlier next time.”

“No need for that.”

There was a beat. She looked at him over the rim of her glass.

He stood, taking her plate before she had the chance. He saw her rise as well, following him part of the way. He set the plates by the sink, then turned to her.

“Have you fed your cat?”

She frowned. “Yes. I fed her before I left.”

After a long beat, he met her eyes and stepped away from the counter to where she was.

“Then come to bed with me.” To anyone else, it would have been a statement, but she knew better. Her breath caught. He carded a hand through her hair. “It’s been too long. I’ve missed you.”

“It’s been a couple of weeks,” she answered.

“It’s been a month and a half.” 

She looked up at him. Without shoes, she was a full head shorter than him. He saw her consider. Then she smiled, small and sweet.

“It has, hasn’t it.” 

“May I satisfy your curiosity?”

× × × × ×

[ before ]

× × × × ×

His second dance with Haruka had begun at the final music video shoot of his idol career.

She was standing at stage left in one of his father’s production studios, taking notes into a black leather folio that was opened over her forearm. The way she held the folio against her wrinkled her dress, dove-grey crepe linen that was hardly enough for the gale that howled outside. 

It was also far too dull for her personality, he thought, waiting until her conversation had concluded before acknowledging her. When it had, he looked at her until she felt his stare and looked up, meeting his eyes.

She turned back to the woman she was speaking to, jotting a few final notes down. Then she closed the folio and bowed slightly.

It was as good as a dismissal. The other woman returned the gesture, then shouldered her bag and left. He took her place.

“Haruka,” he began.

“Eiichi,” she answered.

No honorific. She remembered. He felt his eyes flash, fighting the urge to take her hand and kiss it. 

“What brings you to our humble shoot?”

She smiled a bit, indulging him. Her voice was soft—not shy, exactly, but taking up only as much room as she needed it to. “The most expensive video any Japanese artist has ever produced is humble?”

 _Only the best for Raging’s flagship’s final voyage,_ his father had said. With a third of the band in their _thirties,_ now, they were hardly teenage idols anymore. It was time. But where STARISH had had the final concert, HEAVENS had gone out with considerably _more_ fanfare: a final album with four elaborately-staged music videos, an eleven-show farewell tour, and an eight-episode television special involving a highlight reel of the band’s entire history and chronicling each member’s backstory and next steps.

He may not agree with his father on everything, but he had inherited his tendency for excess.

“You know my father can fill each of his seven pools with Dom Perignon without denting his accounts.”

She looked at him for a moment, her face nearly expressionless.

“Why are you flirting with me?”

Bullseye. He’d missed her. He smirked, playing along and giving her an exaggerated, searching look.

“I’m trying to decide how to convince you to join me for a glass of wine.”

“What happens if I refuse?”

“Are you saying you don’t want to come?”

She blushed. 

“No—”

He cut her off.

“—Then I’ll ask you to join me next Friday at eight. You know where.”

She paused. “How do you know I’m free on a Friday evening?”

“Because _Terpsichore’s_ practice lets out in the afternoon.” He crossed his arms, then played his final move. “And, if I’m not mistaken, you would ordinarily take the evening to yourself to recuperate from such a week, especially since the ballet doesn’t premiere until the end of the month.”

It was a little bit of a bluff. For some time, even before her debut, about half of her work had fallen outside the kinds of idol fare she’d gone to school for. Since her concert, she had gone out of her way to avoid being put under the spotlight again. But she had become more and more entwined with the classical scene, and he’d heard through Reiji’s omnipresent gossip receptors that she had accepted a yearlong fellowship at the New National Theatre, in addition to her work at Divine.

Ordinarily, he didn’t play games like this with information he hadn’t confirmed. But this woman had a way of making him careless.

There was a heavy beat, and she thumbed her chin before deciding to allow him the win. He let out a breath. Before she answered, she smiled to herself, shaking her head.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know my schedule. You know everything that happens in our world.”

“Only when it concerns me.” She quirked a brow. “Don’t give me that look. This is our last video. I requested you for this production.”

“To give yourself an excuse to learn my schedule?”

He huffed a laugh, turning her question back on her. “What would you do if I said yes?” 

She didn’t miss a beat. “I’d say, you have my phone number. If you wanted me to join you for any reason, there are easier ways of asking.”

Her confidence was _delicious._ It emboldened him.

“Indulge me.”

She sighed, her shoulders sagging a bit with the gesture. Again, she shook her head, smiling at him knowingly. 

“You told me I wasn’t predictable, once,” she answered before turning to leave. “I’ll see you next week, Eiichi-kun.”

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

In the span of several breaths, she studied him. Gradually, her smile faded, replaced with something else. He was fully dressed, but the way her eyes searched him made him feel naked.

She closed the small distance between them and raised herself onto her tiptoes. He lifted her into him, meeting her halfway. Her arm braced around his shoulder, her fingers threading into the hair at the back of his neck as she tipped her face to meet him.

He kissed her. Slow. His fingers brushed over her shoulders, over her back, into her hair, which she had cut short again in the time since her debut. He preferred it that way. It left her neck exposed, and he ran his nose and lips up from the juncture of her shoulder to her pulse point before kissing her there and lifting her onto the counter. 

This put her at just about eye level with him. He stepped into her legs as she wrapped them around his hips, flexing to draw him in. He slid an arm up her thigh.

“I love what tango has done to your legs.” 

She smiled against his lips. “So you’ve mentioned.”

His responding growl came against her mouth as he nipped her lower lip.

× × × × ×

[ before ]

× × × × ×

The week after the music video shoot, on the Friday they were supposed to meet, he texted Haruka once he was reasonably sure she was off work.

— _Wear something that makes you feel beautiful,_ he’d instructed.

Her response came moments later.

— _Why?_

He smiled at his phone.

— _Because I’m curious what that looks like to you._

After a moment, he added:

— _And because I’m taking you out in public, and I have a burning desire to make everyone jealous._

An hour later, he’d met her at the bottom floor of his building, offering his arm. She placed a gloved hand on the inside of his elbow.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s close.” He glanced at her, then up again at the busy sidewalk. “I wouldn’t ask you to walk far in this weather.”

It was sunny and cloudless, but unseasonably cold, even for midwinter. The strong breeze from the north that they were walking into didn’t help, and she burrowed a bit into the thick, cream-colored scarf that puffed out of the top of her jacket. He pulled her closer, threading her arm through his.

After a few blocks, he turned and held open a tall door. She glanced at him and walked in.

Inside was a long hall with industrial concrete walls, interrupted only by an alcove staffed by a single young, bored-looking attendant—who, upon recognizing him, went wide-eyed and straightened immediately. Eiichi drew off his coat and handed it to the young man without a word, nodding for Haruka to do the same. 

Again, she glanced at him. She slid out of her coat, pulled off her gloves, and unwound her scarf, handing those, her hat, and her purse to the attendant before letting Eiichi lead her further inside, a hand at her back.

“I’ll look after this, don’t worry!”

He glanced back. The young man was still bug-eyed.

“See that you do.”

They walked to the end of the end of the hall, then turned the corner, and he lowered his hand as he watched her take in the space.

With its concrete walls, high ceilings, and mosaics of exposed copper pipes, the building’s former life as an industrial plant was immediately obvious. It was a far cry from that now. On the street side, a few well-heeled patrons sat at an ornate wooden bar, sipping cocktails and wine. But the bar was almost an island in the cavernous space. In another, two low, midcentury couches faced each other in an alcove surrounded by three enormous abstract paintings, each of which rook up nearly the full wall it was displayed on.

He led her in, catching the bartender’s eye as he nodded at Eiichi and turned back to his patrons.

“It was an ice factory, once.”

“And now, it’s...?”

“An art gallery.” He looked back at Haruka, who was now looking at him with interest. “And a bar, and a wine cellar.”

“And—it’s yours?”

He smiled. “Very good.”

“I should have guessed when you said you were taking me somewhere. Everyone is up to such interesting things, I feel like I have some catching up to do.”

His responding look was incredulous, and a beat later, he stepped partially into her line of vision and crossed his arms. 

“Excuse you. You are the Assistant Creative Director of one of the fastest-growing agencies in the business, one of _my_ agency’s principal competitors. You’ve won multiple awards, including an _Oscar,_ and are now a Fellow at the most prestigious performing arts institution in the country—all to say nothing of the idol work you’ve done. And you’re barely twenty-five. Haruka, in _what_ universe do you have catching up to do?”

She blushed as pink as her hair.

“When you put it like that...”

He wanted to kiss her and to shake her. He did neither, as she trailed off when they were approached by an older, smaller man in a black turtleneck who was practically crackling with energy.

“Eiichi, I’m glad you’re here. Melissa is here, and she wants to know about the positioning of a couple of pieces in the back.”

“I’ll consult with her tomorrow. I told you I would have a guest this evening.”

“Ah, yes!” The man turned to Haruka, bowing slightly. “Where are my manners. Kojima Tatsuo. The director of this establishment. You must be Nanami Haruka.” He tipped his head a bit. “I was told to keep an eye out for you. Come, there are some pieces I think you’ll find very interesting.”

She glanced at Eiichi for a moment, wide-eyed, then back at Tatsuo, who had taken a few steps toward the other end of the cavernous space.

“Go with him. I’ll be right behind you.”

She nodded, following his director, looking a bit bewildered.

As she went, he produced a set of keys and entered the cellar, closing the door and making his way down into the dark space. 

The cellar had been why he’d really purchased the building. There were over 10,000 bottles in his collection, arranged in library-like stacks by varietal and year. The gallery project on top had come later. In the tower adjacent, he planned gut the building and build residences, once his idol work was finished.

It took only a couple of minutes to find the Chianti he’d decided on earlier. He withdrew it along with two glasses from a rack at the side of the shelf, then went back upstairs and locked the cellar door.

After opening the wine at the bar and pouring two glasses, he found Haruka a few minutes later with Tatsuo and an American woman with dark hair, roughly his age, perhaps a few years older. The director was eagerly translating, explaining the processes behind each piece. 

By the time he reached them, she’d turned to him in open astonishment.

“She is like me,” she said quietly, just to him. “She paints music.”

He smiled. “Her name is Melissa McCracken. I thought you would enjoy this.”

She accepted the glass when he handed it to her. Her eyes were still wide. He nodded for her to go observe some more and she turned, practically floating back to the pieces on the walls. The ones in this section were drifting pastels, pinks, purples, oranges, some deep blues, and seemingly every color in between. 

He watched her take it in, turning sometimes to ask questions to the artist in halting English. With her cream-colored dress and soft pink hair, she could have been part of one of the paintings. As her bewilderment eased, they toured the rest of the gallery, and she sipped her wine. Again, she turned to him.

“This wine is as old as me,” he said, answering a question she hadn’t yet asked. They were standing a small ways back from his director and the artist while she explained one of the pieces to Tatsuo. “When we’re done here, we’ll enjoy it properly.”

Several long moments passed before she looked up at him.

“Thank you. This is really amazing.”

He answered with a smile and a hand on her back, guiding her attention forward again.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

A hand on her jaw, he folded her into him, tilted her face the way he wanted her and _plundered_ her mouth. She opened and let him lead. The hand in his hair gripped tighter.

It wasn’t enough. The hands pulling the collar of his shirt down and ghosting along and just under the band of his jeans weren’t either. He slid the hand on her thigh higher, under the hem of her dress and down, and she seemed to anticipate his hand, lifting her leg enough for him to learn the black sheers she was wearing were thigh-highs. He felt a rush in his head and groin that left him dizzy.

“Hold on,” he warned. A beat later, her legs flexed hard around him, her arms locking around his shoulder. As his fingers brushed her bare behind, she ground hard into his front. He felt what she was wearing under her dress. A tiny thong that barely qualified as underwear. He slid his fingers under the band.

“You minx.”

She _hm_ ed a laugh and sucked at his pulse point, pulled gently at his earlobe with her teeth. 

While she climbed him like a tree, he carried her back to his room, stopping only to push her against the doorframe enough that she could feel his hard length against her core through his jeans. He spoke against the skin above the dip of her collarbone.

“Keep this up and I will _wreck_ you.”

She stopped, looking at him in a way that sent a chill through him that few in the world were capable of sending.

“Will you?”

“Is that a challenge?”

She narrowed her eyes, but he could see the knowing smile in them. 

He tapped her nose. “Dealer’s choice, then?”

“Stop talking and kiss me.”

He could have _howled._ He didn’t. Instead, he carried her to his bed and set her on it.

He stepped back, studying her as she had him. When she attempted to remove one of her stockings, he stayed her hand.

“Keep those. I like them.”

So instead, she scooted back on the bed, bringing her legs with her. One was bent, causing the skirt of her dress to pool on that side, the other straight in front of her. She pointed that toe, then met his eyes. 

In a slow, deliberate motion, he ran his fingers over the top of her foot, then down over her pointed toes. Then up, beginning at her ankle, running over her toned calf from underneath her leg. Her tights were slick under his fingers, almost like liquid.

Up, he touched her, then down. Up over her thighs, down the inside of her leg. Toying with the silicone bands of the stockings, never removing them. Through each touch, he watched her, her muscles relaxing with each stroke of his hands, watching and waiting for several long, labored minutes as she lost the battle to keep her eyes open and let her head roll back.

× × × × ×

[ before ]

× × × × ×

A few weeks after their second-first date after the music video shoot, he visited her at work.

In the entrance lobby of Divine, he had traded barbs with Kondo Ikumi of HONEY BIRD for several minutes before passing into a kind of détente. Ikumi, whose swinging legs made a picture of false innocence, sat on the front desk like a leopard waiting to pounce.

She’d said she was guarding the agency’s entrance against men like _him,_ but it was clear that Ikumi held some kind of personal grudge against him. Something to do with one of her bandmates and Hyuuga Yamato. Whatever it was, it didn’t concern him.

Perched against the arm of an adjacent couch, he faced Ikumi, but watched the elevator.

A few minutes later, its doors opened to Haruka, deep in conversation with her senior at the front of a crowd of women. Most of the elevator’s other occupants streamed around the pair through the lobby and off to various parts. He saw Haruka’s senior make a note of something Haruka was saying, then tap the pen she was holding against the rim of her glasses and wink. 

Ikumi barked behind him.

“ _MINA._ Why is he—"

As Haruka turned to him, Minami left in a swirl of lavender hair, effectively cutting off the question.

“It’s not polite to point, Ikumi,” Minami called as she rounded the corner and disappeared.

“Ootori-kun is with me, Ikumi-chan. We have a project.”

She was standing halfway between him and Ikumi, resting slightly against the other end of the couch he was sitting on.

“Haru _ka_.”

He watched some nonverbal exchange take place between the two women over the span of several moments. Then Ikumi rolled her head to the side, her silver and gold curls tumbling down with it, and slid off the counter with a long whine.

“I do work for other agencies sometimes, remember?” Haruka smiled patiently at Ikumi, then motioned to him. “I will be in my office.”

He felt daggers on his back as they left.

“Your office?” He asked once they were at the other end of the lobby, turning the corner Minami had earlier. “I had no idea you were so important.”

She laughed. “Be careful who you let hear you say that. Ikumi-chan isn’t the scariest of my protectors.”

“To whom does that dubious honor belong, then? Fukumori?”

“No.” At the end of the hall, she unlocked her door and admitted him, her responding smile almost a grin. “Minami. Who is next door.”

She let the door fall closed and walked around her desk, sitting primly in her chair.

The space was minimalist, much like the rest of Divine’s small but well-appointed agency headquarters. Above knee height, the west-facing back wall was entirely glass, the winter afternoon light soft and pale through the space at that hour. Her desk, interestingly, was in the center—not that she was lacking for space. Her office was the size of his living room, furnished with a work table, benches, one bookshelf, and a keyboard setup in the corner opposite.

She’d indicated a chair, but he didn’t sit right away. Instead, he took in the space slowly, noting every furnishing, piece of art, and book on her sparse shelves. He leveled a knowing smile at her.

“Now I know why you won’t come work for me. They’ve outfitted you like a C-suite executive.”

Twice in the time he’d seen her in Korea had he made such an offer, only once in jest. She blushed a bit. “I won’t come work for you because I like it here.”

“Not because you don’t want me as a boss?”

Her blush deepened. “No.”

“Because it feels like playing favorites?”

She met his eyes. “Because I’m always given a choice.” 

She let that land and turned her chair toward her computer, turning it on. He sat.

On paper, the purpose of their meeting was to discuss musical arrangements for the episodes of HEAVENS’ upcoming farewell television specials. She had met with his other six bandmates individually, but his word, as always, had the final veto, according to his father’s wishes.

He had no intention of using it. In his mind, HEAVENS had already disbanded—the music in his own episode was less than uninteresting to him. He had never cared about what the public thought of his idol image and the end was the last time he wanted to start.

No. Originally, his plan had been to complete the work early, then ask her to do a solo album with him. 

He had spent the better part of four years deliberately forgetting about the others who competed with him for her attention. Being reminded of them was a continued annoyance. Her own thoughts on that situation, and the potential effects on her from acquiescing to any one of their requests over any other, he had utterly failed to consider.

The magnitude of that oversight seeped into him over the course of their meeting. He left with the plans for the arrangements finalized, and with a promise to himself to keep the request from her until he was sure that his place in her heart was larger than anyone else’s.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

There was always a moment where she let herself give in. She was so cerebral and _guarded_ in her daily life that it sometimes took hours for her to fully surrender when she came to him.

As her breathing evened, he lowered his hand from its teasing place at the apex of her thigh. Behind her knee, he wrapped his fingers around her leg, mimicking a dance lift. Instinctively, she began to raise that leg as though to brace against him.

Instead, he crawled over her. Just above where her tights ended, his lips found her skin and he lingered there, peppering her thigh with light kisses. She spread her legs a little further. 

But before he could continue, he felt the tips of her fingers in his hair just above his ear. Taking the hint, he pulled back and removed his glasses, setting them on the side table.

He did not return. She sat up a little. Her eyes were glassy, her lips slightly parted, her hair mussed over her ear where his hand had been. What little of her chest he could see was flushed delicately pink.

There was a beat while he considered her again, then decided.

For a moment, he let her stew—let the emotions he knew she was feeling right now harden into an almost frustrated desire, then took her ankles and pulled her sharply back toward the edge of the bed. Her dress rode up behind her. He leaned down and bit the inside of the leg he had been kissing, sucking a savage mark. 

She gasped. He licked a long stripe against her, almost to her groin. She quivered, arcing back, digging into her hands that were braced against the bed, holding her up. He parted her legs further, moved her underwear aside. Kissed one of her folds. When her hips canted up, he moved a hand and held them down. 

Her whimpers started quietly, so his teasing began slowly. She’d whimper enough that he’d hear her voice; he’d suck harder, at her walls, her clit, invading her with his tongue as though he were kissing her mouth. Before long, he’d pulled at the band of her underwear and she’d tipped her hips up enough to let him remove them. 

He bit her again. Softly, barely a scrape of teeth. Sucking against her. She was increasingly breathless, but still too quiet.

“Eiichi.”

His name came softly on a breath. In response, he moved back from her, then drew her flush against his groin and slid two fingers into her, hooking up into the spot he could now find in his sleep.

With a loud cry, she arced back into the arm that held her up. She writhed against him as he circled the spot until he used his weight to pin her leg, the hand that wasn’t inside her catching both her hands in his so that all she could do was _feel._

Her free leg brushed the leg he was standing on in defiance. He had no limbs with which to pin her, so he kissed her, dividing her attention between his mouth and hand until she stopped fighting him and surrendered. 

He pulled back from her mouth, watching. Her head was back, her eyes moving behind her eyelids as though trying to see a picture that was moving too fast to get a good look. At a cue from her body that he couldn’t explain, only _knew,_ he added a third finger, pressing against her clit with his thumb and stroking until she shattered around him, her back arcing as a high-pitched whine sent shivers down his spine.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

After the music videos came the television special.

The weeks leading up to the film shoots were a blur. Raging’s various creative teams arranged most of them in what felt like record time, the agency having enough production staff to produce all seven of the individual members’ episodes nearly simultaneously. It felt like being a trainee again, and nearly all of his other engagements were forced to the side. He tolerated it only because it was temporary.

In the meantime, when he’d could, he saw Haruka. Sometimes it was a drink at his gallery, others brief interludes when their schedules intersected enough to meet during the work week. He found himself missing her deeply when he couldn’t see her. Once, he’d even convinced her to have him over to her apartment—she’d been embarrassed at first, the entirety of her small place near the studios being about the size of his bedroom. But it was hers. And, to her amusement, her cat had taken to him.

That night, after he’d cooked for her as a thanks for letting him invade her space, he’d kissed her again.

A gulf of years opened up inside him.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

He stepped back from her, let her catch her breath, and was instantly aware of how hard he was.

While she rode out long waves of pleasure, he shucked his clothing—jeans, boxers, sweater, socks—and walked around the bed. He climbed on behind her, peeling her dress over her arms and body and tossing it behind him, drawing her face-up onto his lap.

Slowly, idly, he stroked her breasts, stomach, sides, everything the dress had hidden, letting his erection press hard and unanswered into her shoulderblades. It was a long few minutes before she acknowledged it—she attempted to sit up, but an arm across her torso kept her down. 

“Are you wrecked, yet?”

She sank back into him. After a moment, she answered, “No. But you know me well.”

“I pay attention.”

She turned up to face him, her smile dazed. “I know.”

“Good. Then you know what happens when you get out of the moment and start thinking.” He chastised. “Do I need to blindfold you?”

She let out a shallow laugh. “No. Do you want to?”

His smile was half-smirk, half-answer. “I have something I want to show you that requires your third eye.”

“Now?”

He’d crawled out from under her and retrieved a length of white satin from his nightstand. At her genuine protest, he returned, kneeling before her and facing her. He took her hand.

“Yes.” He waited for her to meet his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to show you for some time. This is good. Your inhibitions are lowered, your instincts are closer to the surface, and you don’t know what to expect.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then smirked. “Besides, I hear you’re doing a solo album for Ichinose. If you’re going in order of your lovers, I would assume I’m next.”

She raised her head onto a hand that she’d steepled against her cheekbone. If his knowledge of his predecessor’s identity surprised her, she didn’t let on.

“Do you have a demo?”

His answer was a smirk. “Don’t move.”

With that, he turned and got out of bed, making his way to the desk at the opposite end of his well-appointed room. The chill sent goosebumps erupting over his skin. He felt her eyes on his naked body as he opened his computer and queued up tracks, adjusting various settings on the surrounding speakers.

The track began to play. Only a few seconds later, he heard a rustle of fabric as she sat up.

“Wait, how—I know this.” There was a frown in her voice. She listened for a few more seconds, then looked at him. “Why do I know this?”

There was nothing obvious about it. When the answer she was looking for didn’t reveal itself immediately, she closed her eyes.

“That’s cheating,” he growled into her ear.

She gasped. 

“Is—did I write this?” 

She’d turned partway around to face him, resting her hand on his. He toyed with the ends of her hair.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Four years ago.” He nipped her earlobe. “Stop picking it apart and _listen._ ”

She nodded against him. Gently, he freed his hand from hers and stepped away, retrieving the satin bindings from the bed. 

In that time, she’d closed her eyes again. He drew out a short length and tied it over her eyes.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back onto the bed.

While she listened, he arranged her. It was a simple pose, one designed to open her heart. He guided her into a perfect _seiza,_ then spread her legs slightly, working the long ends of the rope around her thighs and ankles in sweeping figure eights. He anchored these with a knot just above her core. 

They had done this enough times that she knew his patterns. When he tugged on the rope, she leaned slightly against it, helping him tighten, and leaned toward him when he brought the rope around the outside.

The next track began to play. It was a remix of the first, barely recognizable—the tempo was nearly halved, the effects languid and slow. Through the anchor in the first knot, he pulled a second rope, which he bound around her torso, below and around her breasts in a sort of cage. He tied it around her shoulders and knotted it off. 

She wasn’t watching with her eyes. She was watching with something else. With each pass, he felt her sway slightly, letting herself drift into the rhythm of his movements and the feel of the slick rope against her skin.

With a third rope, he moved behind her and bound her arms in a web. Loosely enough that she could adjust, reducing discomfort, but firmly enough that she could not unclasp them. The third song began to play—yet another remix of the same track, this one hollowed out and ghostly—and he leaned into her ear, a hand on her shoulderblades.

“You should see yourself. You are stunning.”

“What are you doing?”

He kissed her neck, just over the pulse point. “Composing. Relax.”

The final word was not a consolation, it was an order. 

She obeyed. She settled into the pose, and he watched her get a feel for the way the ropes encouraged her to sit. The tie encouraged her to bow slightly forward and up, the mechanics of her body keeping her upright without the need for suspension.

“How are your arms?”

“Fine.”

“And your legs? Have they fallen asleep?”

“No.” She smiled. “I’ll tell you if they start to. I trust you. Show me what you want to show me.”

“As the lady wishes.” He moved behind her, running his fingers lightly down the length of her spine that the bindings didn’t cover. “I’m going to pull the ropes and touch you. I want you to tell me what you see, in as much detail as you can. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

He pulled gently down on a crossing on her back, causing her chest to bow up more. He supported her with a hand at her side.

“What do you see?”

She breathed in sharply. “Coral. Red.” 

Safety and fear. He released her, helping her settle again. “Good.”

He moved around to her front, repeating the same pull from the other side of her body. She sank slightly back into it.

“Bright green.” Her brows crossed, and she frowned. “Turquoise.”

“Loss and regret, hm? That was a sudden change.”

“I feel a pull inside my chest. Like something is being taken out.”

He sat back in a kneel, studying her. 

“That is absolutely fascinating. I want to know more. But not right now. Let’s try again.”

“Yes.”

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

He’d asked Haruka to come to his condo after their final press conference.

He’d felt hollowed out. Not even her presence could repair the hole. Forgoing the wine he’d promised by text that day, she had let him sweep her into dance after dance in his living room, barely speaking.

He’d asked her to come to bed. She’d agreed.

He bound her wrists and stretched her over the chaise by the fireplace in his bedroom. There, he’d worshipped her naked body like a supplicant for an hour, denying them both completion that whole time before sheathing himself inside her. When he finally let her come, he’d wrenched a climax from her so furious it had brought him over the edge only moments later without even needing to move.

That she’d not only searched for but found and _gave_ what _he’d_ needed that night, he’d only realized long after she had gone home. He’d initiated their next two encounters, and it was only after she’d called him in a bit of a _state_ —there had been a disagreement between her seniors at Divine over whether or not to sign a band with male members, and she’d been caught up as the mediator and didn’t know what to do—that the fear that she was coming to him out of obligation, repaying a debt, or _pity_ finally left him.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

He composed a chorus against her skin. Experimenting. The colors swirled in her descriptions, and he was thankful for his eidetic memory the more the minutes ticked by.

Pulling up on the ties over her shoulders made her sink into the knot at her core, yellow with desire. Pulling at the bindings on her thighs, making that knot press into her slightly, turned the yellow to soft orange, the beginnings of satisfaction. 

Before long, he ignored the ropes completely and slipped his hand past the knot, inside her, and she arced up again with a loud gasp as she suddenly came around his hand with no warning, breathing hard.

She was shaking against him. He withdrew his hand, thinking she was crying—she was laughing.

As she shivered in the aftermath, he unbound her arms with gentle, slow movements, and she clung to him as he unwrapped her, smiling softly. But her eyes remained closed as he laid her on her side. He allowed her to drift, leaving her only long enough to wrap himself with a condom. He pressed her back against him from chest to knee, pulling her closer and holding her to him with an arm across her chest, his fingers curled in her hair.

× × × × ×

[ before the second beginning ]

× × × × ×

The first time Haruka had sought him out, she had been trying to get over an abandonment that had shaken her deeply. She couldn’t resolve things with the person herself without the person incurring serious consequences, she’d said. And after he’d made love to her, breaking every rule of their engagement that he’d set, she’d told him she wasn’t over this person.

Years later, he’d been able to figure out who it was. He hadn’t been trying to figure it out, per se—while they had been at the resort house preparing for Grand Reversal, one of his bandmates had been on his way to the kitchen one morning when he’d overheard her and Tokiya. Van had brought the information back to him. 

After that, several things made sense. According to his brother, who had maintained a friendship with the artist formerly known as HAYATO after their duet project, Tokiya hadn’t been himself when he’d returned from STARISH’s first international tour. At the manor house, he’d been a ghost. And as far as he knew, whatever there had been between him and Haruka was never resurrected.

He knew the ghost-feeling, now.

Three days after he’d announced HEAVENS’ disbandment to his father, his father had called him to discuss HEAVENS’ final projects. _Discuss_ was putting it generously. He knew an order when he heard one, and he brokered no argument when his father laid out his plan for them.

He didn’t mind. Not really. Give him three weeks, and he’d have put forward a similar concept himself. It was grand, it was extra, and it would annihilate the memory of STARISH in the public conscience, at least for a few months.

It was perfect. And it would catch attention.

Except hers. 

Weeks passed leading up to the announcement, the kind of weeks that people inside the industry spent gathering the armadas of talent needed to pull off the productions, and he never heard from her. Nor when the announcement dropped. Somehow, that stung. Especially when he’d heard that she had demanded to be put in charge of arranging STARISH’s final concert all those months ago.

He’d snapped at his father for not consulting her, only to be told that she wasn’t available.

Their bands agent _had_ consulted her. It had felt like a slap.

“It’s different with them,” his brother had told him when he’d caught him brooding outside their father’s office the day after their production lineup had been set. STARISH had formed around Haruka. Her origin story was theirs, and vice versa. It made a certain amount of sense: they had started with her, and it was only right that they should finish with her.

He caught Eiji’s subtext. They had no such hold over her. _And,_ his consciousness supplied: _He_ had no such hold over her. The feelings of entitlement he was feeling were unfair, and he needed to be rid of them. 

“Huh,” his brother had remarked after several minutes of silence, just before turning to leave. Eiji looked at him. “How long have you loved her?”

He narrowed his eyes, then closed them. He took a breath and released it audibly.

“Is it that obvious?”

“No,” Eiji answered without hesitating. “I just know the signs. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

With that, his brother left, leaving him alone again in his father’s empty suite at the agency.

× × × × ×

[ present ]

× × × × ×

He let her drift for several minutes. When he’d brought her against him, his erection had returned full force, but he ignored it long enough to let her marinate in the emotions that had been released through the binding.

“What do you see now?”

She stirred against him, and he nosed her hair out of the way and inhaled slowly against her neck. 

“Yellow. Coral. Pink.”

Desire. Safety. Happiness. 

He folded her into him and turned so that he was laying gently over her. With one deft hand, he swept her wetness onto his cock, which he slid between her cheeks, held in place by his leg. 

“Eyes closed.”

She nodded once, inhaling sharply as he slid against her, but didn’t enter. 

Her head dug a little into his collarbone as he brushed _just so_ against her clit. She gasped.

“Stop teasing me,” she bit out on a whisper.

When she tried to buck, he held her hip down, hooking a leg over her shin for good measure.

“I’m not.”

“Eiichi.”

He shushed her, for once ignoring his name. His fingers coiled over her skin just below her sternum. “Breathe, like I taught you. Slow, from here. Shoulders still.” She nodded once, settling into the breath pattern. He fought the urge to kiss her hair. “Good, sweetheart. Leave the rest to me.”

He ran his hand across her chest. Over one breast, then the other. Down her side, into the apex of her groin. Brushing his finger over her clit as lightly as his cock had just moments before.

She stilled against him. Her breathing slowed, her body tensing with the effort to control it. He ran his thumb under her breast, lingering on the spot he knew was sensitive so that her attention was drawn there.

Then he slid into her from behind.

For a long moment, he held her tightly to him, his arms crossed over her chest, the leg still twined with hers clenching and anchoring her in place as his head swam with the sensation of her tight core stretching to accommodate him. He pressed a featherlight kiss to her hair, staying seated inside her until he could control himself again.

She moaned and mewled and cried out as he worked her. There was an astonishing amount of tension under her skin, even now, after she’d drifted for so long—it pulled at her shoulders and chest, even her stomach, the muscles of which clenched and released involuntarily as his hands caressed her. He wanted to reach inside her and unwind it all until she fused with him, body and soul.

He felt himself begin to drift. It could have been minutes or hours. He breathed deeply at the crown of her head. Her scent seemed sweeter now. With both hands, he mapped her body, running his thumb again beneath her breasts, flattening a palm against the skin above her groin until he could feel his own cock inside her under his hand.

He groaned into her ear. It may or may not have been her name. She bucked against him.

“Eiichi—” His name came out on a sigh. “Don’t stop.”

He turned her over and sank into her to the hilt.

× × × × ×

[ after ]

× × × × ×

_In the nearly four years since she had sought him out the first time, she had matured into a woman. She’d grown comfortable in her own skin. Yet even now, she still kept nearly all of her own thoughts to herself. Uncovering them required sifting through the veneers of things she created for others._

_When the music ended, the count had held her hand and bowed gracefully to her, and she’d curtseyed back._

_“I insist on the next dance.”_

_He had materialized on the floor behind Camus’ shoulder, forcing the man of the hour to step aside so she could see him while she considered. After a moment, she pivoted to Camus, curtseyed again, and smiled, warm and broad._

_“Thank you, Camus-sama.”_

_He didn’t wait for the other man’s departure before sweeping Haruka into his arms._

_There were various pinpricks of attention from around the room. The orchestra picked up a stolid, formal tango, and he promptly ignored all of them._

_“That was rude,” she chastised as they began the dance._

_“What? Cutting off his hopes for the evening before they took root? Haruka, sweetheart.” He drew her close, far closer than this form of tango required, and spoke into her ear. “This may be his party, but he can’t monopolize you. I did him a favor.”_

_“I suppose the dance was over,” she conceded._

_He steered them around another couple in a spiraling arc considerably more elaborate than necessary, earning a whistle from somewhere on the sidelines. He ignored this too._

_“It’s your party, too, you know. And I know how you love to be the center of attention.”_

_She laughed and he spun her under his arm, out, and gracefully back in._

_“I never will be, if you’re around. Thankfully.”_

_“On the contrary,” he purred. “You feel the eyes on us? They’re not watching me.”_

_She blushed. For a minute or so, they went silent within the dance as he led her through several passes, some familiar and some made up on the spot, before he spoke again._

_“Is this your answer?”_

_She looked up at him. “Dancing?”_

_He laughed under his breath. “The album. You’ll do an album with the Count of Permafrost, but you won’t do one with me.”_

_She frowned._

_“I’ve already done one with you.”_

_“You know what I mean.”_

_His own solo album,_ Hipster Nonsense, _had come out the previous year, and had been a roaring success by all the metrics he cared about. Wanting to avoid coasting on his own fame, he had released it under an alias—every instrument and effect was recorded live in studio, and he’d devised a whole slate of promotional stories and videos about how a lost record of 70s arcade rock got lost in Raging’s archives._

_It was a critical smash, and—unlike many releases from contemporaries like Ichinose, to his enduring glee—had performed well internationally._

_But he wanted her_ on _the next album, not just producing it. And she’d been refusing him._

_For months._

_As he pivoted them in a circle, she rested her head against his shoulder, waiting for the next move. But he held her there while other dancers swirled around them. When she realized he wasn’t going to move, she looked up at him, blushing._

_And all of a sudden, they weren’t talking about the album anymore._

× × × × ×

The last time she’d come to him, he’d confessed to her. 

They’d written almost an entire album’s worth of material by then. Some of it, they’d written with sex, exploring universes of sensation through her synesthesia, and some they’d written in the traditional way. But the last track, they’d flipped the script. She had been trying to convince him to let her give him head for months—as she knelt between his legs and swallowed him down, he fought for every scrap of concentration he could get, and he got as far as the chorus before his mind went blank and he came down her throat. 

She had pulled off, wiping her mouth clean and snatching the paper from him while he was still boneless, looking very pleased with herself. She’d plopped on the bed behind him and read. Or tried to. 

“I can barely read this,” she’d teased. “What is this notation—?” 

He’d jumped her when he recovered, pinning her wrist and crushing the paper between them, kissing every trace of himself from her mouth. He’d traced the notation on her skin. 

“Sono innamorato di te.” 

“I’m not familiar with that...moderate sound?” 

He laughed low against her skin. “Acceso. Con amore. Con molto espressione.” 

“...I’m confused." 

“I’ll help, then.” 

He traced it in kanji. 

She’d looked at him, then, her eyes as wide and frightened as a deer’s. 

× × × × ×

_Here, in the ballroom, she wasn’t frightened._

_One album, with any of them who asked. That was the deal. Any more than that was playing favorites. She’d produced four of them so far, but had only appeared on Camus’._

_The songs they had written had been waiting in his files, unused._

_“I don’t think this was showing favorites.” He quirked a brow, and she continued. “Compared to you, ARKANA, and Ichinose-san, I’ve hardly spent any time with him outside the studio. Playing on his album seemed to split the difference.”_

_He laughed, then, and swept her back into the final measures of the dance._

_“Oh, the ways you evaluate fairness.”_

Oh, how you underestimate your allure, _he thought._

_Before she could respond, he dipped her low as the song ended. When he raised her back up, a smattering of applause followed around the floor, and he felt a presence behind him, someone waiting to ask for the next dance. He leaned in close, his voice low in her ear._

_“Come home with me.”_

_She looked up at him quickly. “I can’t leave yet.”_

_“Say yes and I’ll have my driver wait for you up front in an hour. It’s your choice.”_

_She squeezed his hand. A moment later, she pulled something from a previously-invisible pocket in her dress and slipped it into his hand._

_“My answer, about the other thing.” She smiled, nodding fractionally toward the person who was waiting on them. “I’ll see you in an hour.”_

_He kissed her cheek, then turned and walked off the floor, waiting until he was nearly at the edge of the ballroom to unfold and read what she’d handed him._

_There was nothing written on it. It was a slash of white against a square of mottled yellow and gold._

_Reiji was standing where he’d left him, now with a brow raised in interest._

_“You certainly look pleased with yourself. Ruin anyone’s dreams tonight?”_

_“Only yours.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder as he walked past, unable to keep the grin off his face. “Enjoy your evening, my friend. I have a date.”_

_“Oh, now I_ know _you’ve done it—”_

_He made a rude gesture over his shoulder as he let the door fall closed._

**Author's Note:**

> _once again, we learn that vena is incapable of writing anything less than 10k words. and this is like...half the material I wrote. ha. I scrapped a LOT._
> 
> _this is my first time writing even mild bondage and I’m very very unsure about it so if you liked, pls leave a comment_
> 
> _and here’s a breakdown of some of the colors of Haruka’s synesthesia, just for kicks:_
> 
> _red: fear  
>  pink: happiness  
> white: love  
> dark blue: panic  
> green-grey: sadness  
> coral: safety  
> yellow: desire  
> soft orange: satisfaction  
> bright green: loss (between desire and sadness)  
> turquoise: regret_


End file.
